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Why the World Needs WikiLeaks

nytimes.com

21–30 of 182 posts

Re: Why the World Needs WikiLeaks

#21

Correct me if I'm wrong, but wikileaks released information the timing of which was clearly meant to influence the US elections in a very particular way. Secondly, Assange issued statements clearly indicating his intentions to harm Clinton, not promote transparency. Why would the NYT publish this obvious garbage without counterpoint?

they do that a lot in their opinion pieces.

Re: Why the World Needs WikiLeaks

#22

Wikileaks has released some important things, but they should be embarrassed that they thought the personal emails of Hillary's campaign staff saying sometimes silly things to each other was at all newsworthy. It was sensational, sure, but it revealed nothing important or even interesting. Anyone who spends a moment considering the question would expect campaign operatives to gripe about their opponents in over the t…

I disagree with you about the DNC emails, they go above and beyond preference into outright campaign strategy coordination and undermine the whole idea of the primary process. I think if they could have had and released the emails sooner the behavior could have been addressed and that would have been a service to Democrats and the public. It's awful medicine sure, but something has to wake the patient up.

I have not read the subsequent email leaks so I don't have an opinion on whether they were worth releasing or not. For what it is worth, I think their effect on the election was overblown and people who distrusted Hillary would have continued to do so in the absence of such weak evidence.

Re: Why the World Needs WikiLeaks

#23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

governments can leak information with or without the help of wikileaks. all wikileaks cares about is complete transparency and access to information.

if Wikileaks lets itself be used to prefer political candidates then they are failing in this mission.

How? In what way does preferentiality damage the transparency or validity of the information?

Re: Why the World Needs WikiLeaks

#24

Wikileaks has released some important things, but they should be embarrassed that they thought the personal emails of Hillary's campaign staff saying sometimes silly things to each other was at all newsworthy. It was sensational, sure, but it revealed nothing important or even interesting. Anyone who spends a moment considering the question would expect campaign operatives to gripe about their opponents in over the t…

There was plenty of relevant info in those leaks, such as Obama's 2008 cabinet being chosen by a Citibank executive

https://newrepublic.com/article/137798/important-wikileaks-r...

Re: Why the World Needs WikiLeaks

#25

"Some have accused us of being pawns of the Russian government, but this misrepresents our principles and basic operations. ...We prefer not to know who our sources are; we do not want to.." So they prefer to be unwitting pawns? Transparency is great, freedom of information is great, but is there some point at which you have to step back and acknowledge that you're being used by a foreign power? Doesn't that undermin…

You are saying we should ignore the abuses of our ruling power because some foreign ruling power is rumored to expose them? I don't want to live in fascism just so the communists don't win, that doesn't seem like a worthwhile tradeoff.

I don't want to live in fascism

Right, I forgot exposing Hillary's emails prevented the rise of fascism.

Re: Why the World Needs WikiLeaks

#26

And two months ago, for NYTimes, WikiLeaks was evil [1]. Now the world "needs" it. This doesn't make much sense... [1] http://www.twitlonger.com/show/n_1sp2hsr

It's almost as though the Times publishes pieces by multiple contributors representing a diverse range of perspectives.

Re: Why the World Needs WikiLeaks

#27

"Some have accused us of being pawns of the Russian government, but this misrepresents our principles and basic operations. ...We prefer not to know who our sources are; we do not want to.." So they prefer to be unwitting pawns? Transparency is great, freedom of information is great, but is there some point at which you have to step back and acknowledge that you're being used by a foreign power? Doesn't that undermin…

What would have happened to Hillary's emails if WikiLeaks would not have existed?

Russia (probably?) still would have released them. WikiLeaks is merely a tool for entities wishing to release secret information and documents.

Personally, I prefer WikiLeaks to be indiscriminate towards the secret documents they are entrusted with. If they weren't, another service would probably pop up doing exactly that.

Re: Why the World Needs WikiLeaks

#28

Wikileaks has released some important things, but they should be embarrassed that they thought the personal emails of Hillary's campaign staff saying sometimes silly things to each other was at all newsworthy. It was sensational, sure, but it revealed nothing important or even interesting. Anyone who spends a moment considering the question would expect campaign operatives to gripe about their opponents in over the t…

Regardless of how (in)significant you think the material they release is, there's no such thing as too much transparency.

Re: Why the World Needs WikiLeaks

#29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You are saying we should ignore the abuses of our ruling power because some foreign ruling power is rumored to expose them? I don't want to live in fascism just so the communists don't win, that doesn't seem like a worthwhile tradeoff.

I'm not saying that at all. What I'm saying is that WikiLeaks' guiding philosophy as espoused in this article seems almost willfully naive.

What would you propose they do? Not leak documents based upon who the source is?

If the documents are authentic, why does it matter who the source was?

If A leaks documents on B revealing corruption about B, just because A's motives may not be pure, doesn't make B any less corrupt.

Re: Why the World Needs WikiLeaks

#30
post #2

A friendly reminder that there has been no proof that Julian Assange is alive, for quite a while. Also their 'insurance' file hashes no longer match the files. And the latest messages are not digitally signed. Also there was a set of moderators added all over related subreddits to suppress this.

what is the significance of the insurance file hashes no longer matching the files?

None - they never did match the (encrypted) files.

WL commented on this conspiracy theory earlier today, both saying Assange appreciates the concerns that he's dead, and saying that "obviously" the hashes are for decrypted files, not the encrypted ones: https://twitter.com/wikileaks/status/798997378552299521

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